Code Formatter extension

For those who use BlogEngine as a technical blog (which is pretty common at this stage) code formatting feature is a must. Sure, you can squeeze your code in between “pre” tags and you are done – well, almost – editor will probably remove most of the white spaces and you’ll have to add some non-braking-spaces instead. But if you want coloring and nice formatting you’ll need more than that. There are several options to explore, and most obvious one is BlogEngine’s code formatter extension that comes with installation bits. To use extension you simply enclose your code within square-bracketed tags and specify what language you are going to format. If you do it from Tiny MCE rich box editor, it will add “p” and “pre” tags automatically for you, if you prefer doing it from HTML view you’ll have to add some tags manually, as shown in the picture on the right. Because Tiny MCE has a habit of re-formatting your HTML, based on your configuration results might vary and sometimes not be pretty. And you may not use Tiny MCE at all – if you replaced it with another editor. So you might run into problems using formatting extension, lots of people do (based on discussions in the BlogEngine's forum). No worries – there always more than one way to skin the cat! More...